Sound the alarm: the Chiefs have that look again.
The most stunning thing about Kansas City’s Super Bowl win last season was that it came in what should have been a retooling year. Sure, when you have Patrick Mahomes, every season carries championship expectations. But for much of last year, the Chiefs had that not-quite-good-enough feel of the mid-dynasty New England Patriots. Their defense was outstanding, but the offense had taken on too much water: their receivers couldn’t catch; the offensive line struggled with injuries; the 34-year-old Travis Kelce showed inevitable signs of decline.
If ever there was a year to knock the Chiefs off their perch, that was it. And yet the Chiefs came away as champions again, and are now aiming for an unprecedented three-peat.
It’s tricky to pull too much away from one week. But of all the early storylines – Aaron Rodgers’ return, Caleb Williams’ debut, the plucky Patriots, Baltimore’s hampered offensive – none is as impactful as the idea that the Chiefs’ offense has rediscovered its mojo. Winning by a toenail against a Ravens team with a freshman defensive coordinator and traffic cones along its offensive line is not a sure sign of a juggernaut. But the seeds of what is to come were there.
Over the past two seasons, the Chiefs have toggled back and forth between a group led by Mahomes and the offense and one more reliant on defense. Two years ago, a so-so defense was carried over the line by a once-in-a-lifetime performance from Mahomes in the Super Bowl. Last year, the defense kept games tight while Mahomes closed the deal.
This season, both sides of the ball are rising together. What was the youngest defense in the league last season continues to improve, featuring stars at all three levels. With Aaron Donald retiring, Chris Jones is the most dominant interior force in the league – and he’s paired with former undrafted free agent Tershawn Wharton, one the NFL’s best-kept secrets. Behind them is a malleable, athletic linebacking corps. And behind them, a deep and talented secondary headlined by star corner Trent McDuffie.
If that wasn’t enough to concern the rest of the league’s contenders, an offense that sputtered through last season showed a new gear against the Ravens. With the addition of first-round pick Xavier Worthy at receiver alongside Rashee Rice, the fireworks have returned to Kansas City.
Back in the early days of the Mahomes-Andy Reid partnership, the Chiefs were an explosive play waiting to happen. When Mahomes, Kelce and Tyreek Hill were rolling – when the aggressive plays, speedy weapons and off-script creativity worked in unison – the offense was less about executing football plays and more about waging psychological warfare. At their apex, the Chiefs were smarter, quicker and more talented than whoever they faced. But losing Hill forced Mahomes and Andy Reid to adjust; they shifted from a bomb’s-away approach to one based more on timing and efficiency, relying on the telepathic connection between Mahomes and Kelce to keep the chains moving and putting a stronger emphasis on the run game.
That base has stuck. But Worthy, thanks to his record-breaking speed, has brought a jolt of electricity back to proceedings.
The Chiefs lacked reliable playmakers around Mahomes last year. If Worthy can stay healthy and Rice can stay on the field, then the Chiefs will have surrounded their quarterback with his best collection of weapons since 2021. Add it all up and it isn’t a stretch – even at this very early stage – to think this could be the best Chiefs team of the Mahomes-Reid era. Only once with Mahomes at quarterback have the Chiefs ranked in the top-1o in DVOA on offense and defense, a measure of a team’s down-to-down efficiency. That was last year, when the Chiefs’ defense finally turned up to the party but the offense slipped out of the top-three for the first time with Mahomes at quarterback.
Winning three straight will still be incredibly difficult though: the Chiefs could be a stronger team this season but wind up falling short in the playoffs. After all, no team has won three titles in a row since the start of the Super Bowl era in the 1966 season.
Over the summer, Apple TV+ released The Dynasty, an inside look at the rise and fall of the Brady-Belichick Patriots. It exposed all the issues that can vaporize a championship run: egos, injuries, a bad call from the officials, fumble luck, mental and physical fatigue, the need to maximize every personnel choice given the constraints of the salary cap. Having all the ingredients aligned for one season is hard enough. Getting all three in sync for three years is close to unimaginable. And that’s before we get to the single-elimination format of the playoffs: a great team can have a bad day against an average team having a brilliant one.
But here’s the thing with the Chiefs: plenty did go against them last year. And they still wound up with one drive to win the Super Bowl and the ball in Mahomes’s hands – and that was all that mattered.
The top of the AFC remains loaded. The Ravens, Texans, Bills, Bengals, Dolphins and even – don’t laugh – the Jets entered this season with Super Bowl aspirations, and all can talk themselves into having a solid path. But winning has a way of sustaining itself. Unlike the teams playing catchup, there was no panic from the Chiefs this past offseason; they got on with the business of refining on the margins, retaining their core pieces while addressing their most pressing need at receiver.
It’s different for the AFC’s other contenders. They all face difficult questions. How will the new-look Dolphins defense fare? Can Josh Allen drag along an underbaked receiver room? Will Aaron Rodgers enforce a team-wide bone broth cleanse? Will the Ravens defense be able to replicate last year’s performance now that defensive guru Mike Macdonald is in Seattle?
The main contenders, outside the young pup Texans, are all experiencing some kind of roster or coaching overhaul.
That’s one of the least discussed elements of this Chiefs run. For a dynasty, they’ve suffered relatively little brain drain. During the Brady-Belichick years, the Patriots had a revolving door of coaches. Franchises across the league pinched away members at all levels of the organization to try to import the Patriot Way. Assistant coaches were happy to flee Belichick’s authoritarian style to carve out their own path. Fourteen former assistants left New England to take up head coaching jobs in the pro or college ranks; countless other lower-level staffers left for roles higher up the coaching food chain. When one coach departed in the later years, he even took a chef and some secretaries with him.
The Chiefs’ championship run has been unique: they keep winning and yet the band has stayed together. Steve Spagnuolo, the league’s best defensive coordinator, has not been interviewed for head coach openings during his time in KC – and signed a three-year contract extension this offseason. Andy Heck, one of the most respected offensive line coaches in the league, has been with the Chiefs throughout Reid’s 11 years as head coach. Ditto for special teams coordinator Dave Toub. The only person who has left is former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. The stars have remained the same, but so have most of the background players. How is this for coaching continuity:
Tight ends coach: 11 years
Head of analytics: 11 years
Passing game coordinator: eight years
Strength and conditioning coach: eight years
Linebackers coach: five years
Defensive backs coach: five years
Wide receivers coach: five years
In a league that’s falling over itself to hand jobs to anyone who has stood close to Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan, it’s remarkable how Reid has kept his staff intact. When you pair that cohesion with the greatest quarterback in the world, it widens the margin for error.
Glance at the staff and the offseason additions and it’s tough to find where there will be any kind of drop-off. There are elements of the roster that can be nitpicked – are they strong enough at left tackle? What if Rice misses time? – but for a team hoping to win a third-straight title, those are minor quibbles.
And then you have this. According to Pro Football Focus, the Chiefs have the 10th easiest strength of schedule this season, which feels almost unfair for the back-to-back champs. The trickiest run on that slate is their opening four games. One of those has already been checked off, and based on early showings weeks two and three against Cincinnati and Atlanta will not be giving anyone in Kansas City sleepless nights. Outside a tricky week 11 trip to Buffalo and a late-season game against the Texans, it’s tough to find a spot where the Chiefs won’t be heavily favored.
Even the most overwhelming champions experience serious hiccups along the way. But last season was the Chiefs’ hiccup. They hadn’t assembled an Avengers-like roster, and they showed vulnerabilities throughout the regular season – and in the Super Bowl itself. After plugging those holes this offseason, it’s hard to think how anyone in the AFC can keep up.
A three-peat, in any era, let alone a salary-capped one, should be impossible. But Mahomes has already shown that, with him, there is no such thing. Why should we expect anything less this time around?
